How Maye Musk Used Instagram to Get a CoverGirl Contract at 69

She's not your average grandma.

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Have you ever tried to explain Instagram to your grandmother? It’s like an inspiration board of photos but on your phone, and you can tell people you like them with hearts. Yeah...At 69 years old, Maye Musk (herself a grandmother of 10) doesn’t only get Instagram, she’s harnessed it to help transform her modeling career. “I was posting photos of my work, and suddenly photographers would contact me to do bizarre, fantastic, completely not a 70-year-old type looks,” Musk tells SELF.

The attention got her 100K followers—and a contract with IMG, the modeling agency that represents Gigi Hadid and Joan Smalls, which got her better and better jobs. In September, Musk was named a CoverGirl, making her the oldest spokesmodel for the brand in history.

Musk has been modeling since she was 15 years old. Her mother’s friend owned a modeling school and got her into a paid runway job that led to a lifelong career. Surprisingly, she never really heard she was beautiful growing up in South Africa, where she says there is a different standard for beauty. “No one said to me that you’re beautiful,” she says. “They thought you need to be interesting and intelligent and have good conversation. I just think a big smile and feeling confident makes you beautiful.”

Musk never expected modeling to be her full-time gig, and has been a practicing registered dietician for most of her life. She always assumed her modeling career would peeter off, but it never did. She kept getting calls and auditions. “My hashtag is #justgettingstarted because I really think the world is opening up for us,” she says. “I hope other women of my age and older and very much younger realize we can just keep going.” It doesn’t look like she’ll be retiring any time soon. (Her mother worked until she was 94, so she’s got a few more decades before she beats that record.)

Age is insignificant to Musk. She truly believes there are no rules when it comes to aging, and she doesn’t worry about getting older. “I always said as a dietician age doesn’t matter. As long as you’re doing good research and helping people eat well, it doesn’t matter what age you are,” she says. “As a model, maybe it’s going to matter at some stage, but it’s certainly not happening now.”